Microsoft Windows Group Policy Preferences Password Privilege Escalation Vulnerability (CVE-2014-1812)
Published In CISA KEV since Sources: CVE.org
What is affected, what to do
The Group Policy implementation in Microsoft Windows Vista SP2, Windows Server 2008 SP2 and R2 SP1, Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and Windows Server 2012 Gold and R2 does not properly handle distribution of passwords, which allows remote authenticated users to obtain sensitive credential information and consequently gain privileges by leveraging access to the SYSVOL share, as exploited in the wild in May 2014, aka "Group Policy Preferences Password Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability."
The vulnerability is being actively exploited; treat it as a priority. CISA lists it as used in ransomware campaigns. The available sources name no fixed version. Check the vendor guidance in the references below. Immediate actions, mitigation and detection rules are in the runbook below.
- Affected
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008
eq r2..r2 - Microsoft Windows Server 2012
eq r2..r2
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008
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Metrics
8.8
Priority
XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.
Source: Vendor (CNA), CVSS v3
8.8
CVSS v3
Severity High on the scale from 0 to 10.
Source: CVE.org
65.1 %
EPSS score
High — model estimates ≥ 50% chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days.
Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 99.25
Show all metrics
- Severity
- Critical
Priority (0–325)
The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?
Read in glossary- 247.80 Methodology
Exploit maturity
An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.
Read in glossary- actively exploited
XIEM Effective CVSS
XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command.
Read in glossary- 8.8 Methodology
CVSS v3
CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.
Read in glossary- 8.8
EPSS score
The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“.
Read in glossary- 65.1 %
- High — model estimates ≥ 50% chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days.
EPSS percentile
The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking.
Read in glossary- 99.25
- Critical — this CVE ranks in the top fifth of all CVEs scored today (rank ≥ 80%).
KEV status
The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.
Read in glossary- Actively exploited
- Published
In CISA KEV since
The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.
Read in glossary- CISA assessment (SSVC)
- Exploitation: active · not automatable · Technical impact: partial
- Source: CISA Vulnrichment, as of 10 February 2025
CWE
CWE is a catalogue of typical weakness types in software and hardware — such as flawed input validation, unsafe memory handling or poor authentication. Where a CVE names a concrete vulnerability in a concrete product, a CWE describes the underlying class of defect.
Read in glossary- CWE-522
Response and mitigation
Why act now?
Prioritisation rationale
This vulnerability is on KEV because Microsoft published the AES key that decrypts GPP CPassword values, meaning any authenticated domain user with SYSVOL read access — effectively every valid account — can harvest domain credentials; the path from phishing victim to domain admin is a documented step in many ransomware playbooks, which is reflected in CISA's known-ransomware-use flag. Exploitation likelihood is very high because tools such as Get-GPPPassword, PowerSploit and BloodHound automate extraction end-to-end and require no privileged access. For organisations with legacy Active Directory estates the relevant question is not "are we vulnerable" but "do legacy GPP files still exist in SYSVOL" — the SYSVOL sweep therefore outranks the patch itself and should be treated as a P1 action, especially in NIS2-scope environments with flat AD designs.
Runbook step 1
Immediate response (0-24 h)
- Deploy Microsoft patch MS14-025 (KB2962486) on all domain controllers and admin workstations. Note: the patch only removes the GUI capability to create new GPP password entries — it does NOT clean up existing CPassword values in SYSVOL.
- Scan SYSVOL and NETLOGON on every DC for
cpassword=: PowerShellGet-ChildItem \\<domain>\SYSVOL -Recurse -Include Groups.xml,Services.xml,ScheduledTasks.xml,DataSources.xml,Printers.xml,Drives.xml | Select-String "cpassword". Every hit is a credential leak — recreate the GPO without password preferences and delete the XML file. - Rotate every account whose credentials were ever distributed via GPP (local admins, service accounts, scheduled-task accounts, mapped-drive credentials). Treat them as compromised — the decryption key is public knowledge.
- Audit SYSVOL read access: any authenticated domain user can read SYSVOL. Verify Tier-0 isolation for affected accounts; if local-admin passwords are shared across endpoints, assume an active lateral-movement path.
- Deploy LAPS (Local Administrator Password Solution) or Windows LAPS as the replacement mechanism before issuing new static credentials via any policy channel.
Runbook step 2
Mitigation layers
- Configuration: migrate every GPO containing Preferences items for Local Users and Groups, Services, Scheduled Tasks, Data Sources, Drive Maps or Printers that carries a password. Preferences password fields are deprecated post-patch.
- IAM / least-privilege: separate service accounts per service and per host instead of shared accounts; adopt gMSA (Group Managed Service Accounts) for automatable services and restrict Kerberos delegation.
- Network segmentation: block SMB (TCP 445) between client VLANs so leaked local-admin hashes cannot pivot via Pass-the-Hash. Restrict DC SMB exposure to domain members only.
- Endpoint hardening: enable Credential Guard, enforce Restricted Admin Mode for RDP, place sensitive accounts in the Protected Users group.
- Monitoring baseline: run a daily automated SYSVOL
cpasswordscan as a continuous compliance control and alert SOC on any hit. - Backup hygiene: scan and clean historical SYSVOL backups as well — attackers with backup access can extract GPP passwords from them unchanged.
Runbook step 3
Detection rules
- File access monitoring on DCs: Windows Event ID 4663 (Object Access) on
*\SYSVOL\*\Groups.xml,Services.xml,ScheduledTasks.xmlfrom non-admin accounts. Sigma shape:EventID: 4663 AND ObjectName endswith ('Groups.xml','Services.xml','ScheduledTasks.xml') AND NOT SubjectUserName in (<DomainAdmins>). - Process telemetry (Sysmon EID 1) on clients: execution of
Get-GPPPassword,gpp-decrypt, PowerSploit modules orpowershell.exewith CommandLine containingcpassword,AES,Groups.xml. KQL:DeviceProcessEvents | where ProcessCommandLine has_any ("Get-GPPPassword","cpassword","gpp-decrypt"). - Network/Zeek: baseline-anomalous SMB read volume from a standard user account against SYSVOL paths — indicator of automated enumeration tooling (BloodHound's SharpHound collector pulls SYSVOL as part of its default run).
- EDR process ancestry:
cmd.exeorpowershell.exeaccessing\\<FQDN>\SYSVOL\...\Preferences\...outside of legitimate Group Policy processing contexts (gpscript.exe,svchost.exerunning the GP client). - Credential-use follow-up: Event ID 4624 Logon Type 3 using a local-admin account from unusual source hosts; correlation with a preceding SYSVOL read is a strong lateral-movement signal.
- File access monitoring on DCs: Windows Event ID 4663 (Object Access) on
Detection rules
No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.
Classification under NIS2 and CRA
Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.
NIS2
NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.
Read in glossary- Actively exploited: treat the vulnerability as a priority in vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2. If it is exploited in your environment, check the reporting obligation under Art. 23 (early warning within 24 hours).
CRA
The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.
Read in glossary- Since 11.09.2026, manufacturers of affected products with digital elements must report actively exploited vulnerabilities under Art. 14 CRA, with an early warning within 24 hours via ENISA's single reporting platform.
ISO/IEC 27001
ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.
Read in glossary- Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.
Description
The Group Policy implementation in Microsoft Windows Vista SP2, Windows Server 2008 SP2 and R2 SP1, Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and Windows Server 2012 Gold and R2 does not properly handle distribution of passwords, which allows remote authenticated users to obtain sensitive credential information and consequently gain privileges by leveraging access to the SYSVOL share, as exploited in the wild in May 2014, aka "Group Policy Preferences Password Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability."
Source: NVD (NIST), cvelistv5, CISA KEV Catalog, CVE.org (MITRE)
Vendors and products
Affected operating systems
| Windows | microsoft | windows_7 | — |
| Windows | microsoft | windows_8 | — |
| Windows | microsoft | windows_8.1 | — |
| Windows | microsoft | windows_server_2008 | r2 |
| Windows | microsoft | windows_server_2008 | — |
| Windows | microsoft | windows_server_2012 | r2 |
| Windows | microsoft | windows_server_2012 | — |
| Windows | microsoft | windows_vista | — |
Weakness classes (CWE)
CWE-522Insufficiently Protected Credentials
Class
The product transmits or stores authentication credentials, but it uses an insecure method that is susceptible to unauthorized interception and/or retrieval.
Entry at MITRE CWE-522
Public exploit references
Publicly reported proof-of-concepts, exploit modules and detection templates for this vulnerability. NEOSEC links to the original sources only and does not provide any exploit code.
| CISA KEV Catalog | CISA Known Exploited Vulnerability (opens in a new tab)cisa.gov | actively exploited |
References & sources
- docs.microsoft.comMS14-025Vendor advisory, x_refsource_MS, Patch, Vendor advisory
- blogs.technet.comb/srd/archive/2014/05/13/ms14-025-an-update-for-group-policy-pr…x_refsource_CONFIRM, Third-party advisory
- cisa.govknown-exploited-vulnerabilities-catalog?field_cve=CVE-2014-1812government-resource, US government resource
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<a href="https://intel.neosec.eu/en/cve/CVE-2014-1812"><img src="https://intel.neosec.eu/badge/cve/CVE-2014-1812.svg?lang=en" alt="CVE-2014-1812 – NEOSEC Intel" height="20"></a>